trowel

Plastering Trowel

EIFS premium plastering trowel

This premium plastering trowel is the perfect trowel for any professional plasterer. I have been plastering of over 25 years and this trowel is the best trowel you have used. This stainless steel trowel will feel great in your hand. We went with a wooden handle because it just feels better in your hand. This is a 12 inch trowel with the high quality stainless steel. This trowel is featured in our EIFS Tool Kit. The tools in the kit are tested by Exterior Insulation and Finish System professionals and they work. Every journeyman that has used these tools have loved them. You will be pleased with this trowel. For most of us an old trowel is like a old pair of shoes. It’s comfortable and broke in just right. The most important tool in a plasterers tool bag is his trowel, so when you buy a new trowel buy one that other master plasterers recommend, and this is that trowel. This trowel is great for base coat and for the finish coat. The more you use your trowel the sharper it gets. It actually gets sharp enough to cut the fiberglass mesh and can give you a nasty cut. One of the most important things is to keep your trowel clean. A clean trowel, and for that matter clean tools in general are better tools. It is much easier to get a nice smooth wall with clean tools. This plastering trowel is perfect for EIFS (aka synthetic stucco), stucco, and putty coating. I have been an EIFS applicator for over 25 years and this trowel works great when applying Exterior Insulation and Finish System, but it also will work perfectly for all the trowel trades.

Obviously, there are other tools we could have put in here, but we wanted to have the tools most plasterers wanted in the kit, so we asked you, and here is what we found everyone wanted in the kit. These are the essential tools that every plasterer needs, and wants, at an affordable price. The tools in this kit are all top notch tools that will last. The trowels are of the best quality, and the rivets will not pop before you can break this trowel in like some other trowels out there. Same with the hawk. I have used some hawks that fall apart in a few days of normal use. These hawks are made to last. Of course, we don’t want you beating them with a hammer, but under normal use if you are diligent with keeping it clean it, will last a good while. That is the reason the kit comes with a bucket brush. Not to clean bucket necessarily, but to keep your tools clean. It is very important to keep your tools clean if you want to have tools that last for years.

Stainless Steel Premium Trowel: These trowels are used by professional Exterior Insulation and Finish System applicators with 20+ years of experience and they really like them. We have not had anyone say they don’t like the trowels. Everyone loves them.

Float: The plastic float is an important part of making the job look great. After troweling the finish coat on the float is used to lay down the finish. Having a clean flat float is key to any good plasterers tool bag.

Margin Trowel: Most plasterers carry a margin trowel around with them all day. A margin trowel is a great trowel to get in those hard to get areas. It also works great to scrap off excess mud from the back of your trowel between cleanings.

Outside Corner Tools: We could have included more corner tools, but honestly the most used corner tools and the one inch and the inch and a half, so that is what we have included in the kit to keep the cost down. We did not want to include a bunch of tools you would not you every day. We did not include any inside corners because lets face it most journeyman plasterers do not have a problem making inside corners look great with just a trowel.

Hawk: We went with an aluminum 12″ hawk because it keeps the cost down and it is the best to use with a 12″ trowel. We used to all use a huge 14″ trowel and hawk back in the day, but now that we all have bad wrists and elbows from trying to kill ourselves I think most of us realize a 12″ trowel is a little more practical for the long haul.

Bucket Brush: It’s obvious job is cleaning buckets, so you can use them to make more mud, but more importantly this brush is used to keep your tools clean and is carried with you in a bucket of water while you work, as to clean your tools frequently.

Tool Bag: Is used to transport the tools to and from the job site. This heavy duty tool bag will serve you well.

The Do It Yourself EIFS Repair Kit

The trowel is a very important tool in the EIFS Repair Kit

The EIFS Repair Kit includes a trowel which is your application tools. The shape of the trowel is perfect for scoping out the cement mix and gives you a great way to spread the cement smoothly onto the wall. The EIFS cement mix is made to be applied very thin, approx. 1/8″ thick with little waves or bumps in the cement coat. The cement coat should be applied with great detail to perfection as the finish coat will only look as good as the cement coat under it. If you can not get it smooth you can let you best work dry and come back and sand it smooth. The best think to sand the cement coat with is floor sand paper. You can find floor sand paper at your local home improvement store. Another thing to keep in mind is that your cement will dry up after time and become very hard to work with. The dry time has a lot to do with the temperature. If you are working on a cloudy 60 degree day you may have about 45 minutes to work with your cement before it begins to show signs of drying up. But if you are out on a sunny 90 degree day you may only have about 10 minutes to complete your project. Keep in mind that the EIFS material should never be applied in weather that is below 40 degrees.

There are several EIFS finish textures to chose from. The best way to talk about EIFS textures to to be able to see what you are talking about so I will include an image of each teture type.

Fine Finish

This is the EIFS Fine Finish which is very popular in the Mid West. The Fine Finish is a smooth finish. And might be considered a high tech look. The finish is applied by a journeyman plasterer with a hawk and trowel and typically floated with 9″ circles by the floater.

Medium Finish

This is the EIFS Sahara Finish which is very popular everywhere and is great to cover imperfections in the wall which makes it a perfect match for restorations. The Sahara Finish is not as smooth. And can hide a lot more than fine finish will. The finish is applied by a journeyman plasterer with a hawk and trowel and typically floated with 9″ circles by the floater.

Coarse Finish

This is the EIFS Coarse Finish which is very popular everywhere and is even better for cover imperfections in the wall which makes it a perfect match for restorations. The Coarse Finish has a traditional stucco look. And can hide a lot more than Sahara finish will. The finish is applied by a journeyman plasterer with a hawk and trowel and typically floated with 12″ figure eights by the floater.

Those are the three main types of finished used in the EIFS industry today. Utilizing a couple different textures on your EIFS project can really make the difference. Using a classic texture on the wall and a fine finish on the detail can really make the difference and add some real class to the job.

For an EIFS applicator it can be hard to keep the tools clean. On a really hot day it only takes a matter of minutes for the alpha base coat or finish coat to dry up on the tools. After the material is dry on the tools it is a task to get it off. There is an easy fix to this problem. Simply carry a bottle of WD-40 with you and spray the back side of your hawk and trowel with it. The base coat or finish will dry on the tools but it scraps right off. With a layer of oil between the trowel and the mud it allows the mud to fall right off very easily.

It is pretty common knowledge that Curry trowels are the best, well at least to all of us season vets of the plastering industry out there. For everyone one else take my word for it, there is no better trowel on the market. If you are a EIFS guy, and you don’t have a Curry trowel in your tool bucket, then get you one you’ll love it. I personal use a 14 x 5 Curry Finishing Trowel which in my option is the perfect sized trowel for EIFS. It takes several months to break in a new trowel but after that you are golden with one of these trowels. It does not matter if you use Dryvit, Senergy, Master Wall, Sto or any other material a Curry trowel works the best with them all.

When floating the EIFS (Exterior Insulation and Finish System) Finish coat you will need a plastic float, a trowel and a clean bucket of water with a brush. You will rub the plastic float over the finish on the wall in a circular motion. Every few circles you will clean the plastic float with the trowel. You will do this two times the first time quickly with a firm grip and some pressure on the float making sure to hit every spot on the wall and taking any and all trowel lines away. The second time will be much lighter to clean up any imperfections. After the first round with the float you should make sure you clean the float with your clean water and bucket brush. It is important not to put the float back on the wall while it is wet.